Suggestion as to how to get people to become healers.

[RukiaFae]

This is why I suspect Cleric will be removed and all healer damage will scale through mind. Of course, that has the added effect of solidifies the healer DPS meta. It wouldn't even be an option anymore. So... who knows.

I'm thinking the same thing. That would be the best way to lower the ceiling between healers. Treat cleric like they plan to treat Enocain. All healers can give decent DPS, while the top tier will be able to push their healing and DPS to max.

[Youkulm]

In regards to OP, ignoring all the other posts ( because it’s clearly changed into a bashing "lazy" healers thread. Or I assumed as such after reading 2 pages. )

I have no issues DPSing on healer for a majority of the runs ( it’s fairly simple and should be to anyone that has played healer long enough ). I have no issues stance dancing. It took getting used to but it’s not terribly complicated. However....

I'm all in favor of Cleric being removed. It adds nothing to the game other than needless complication to new and timid players. There is absolutely no reason in the world why healer damage cannot be scaled to their main stat. When I started this game and someone explained Cleric to me I didn't understand why it was in the game in the first place. Why in the world wouldn't a mage class do damage based on their main stat? It's silly.

To those in this thread whining that "Omg if you take cleric away healer would be so boring and not at all dynamic and I can’t lord my skill level over lesser beings who suck at my job!" ( paraphrasing of course ) I really don't think that will be an issue. You really think clicking one extra button ( 2 if you count dancing in and then out of cleric ) is what makes DPSing on healer fun? Really?! I thought it was the act of DPSing and making sure your party survives, as a whole, not that one little red button.

Also if you think removing Cleric is going to make "lazy" healers DPS it won’t. They still won’t do it. ( that whole mentality of I play healer, I only heal.. is never going to go anywhere. Cleric or no Cleric that mentality is here to stay ). The removal of Cleric will however make DPSing on healer much more approachable and less frightening to baby ( non-endgame ) healers and even "Lazy" healers. Sooo guess what? You still get to lord over other people and sleep well at night because you're clearly a superior being. /sarcasm

Just get rid of Cleric it’s so unnecessary. It’s bad design and it should have never been in the game to begin with. The dev team needs to do the right thing just like they did with tanks and STR. Fix it already.

Of course this is all opinion. Take it as you will.

[Sebazy]

And I'll say it again, if you want healers who don't bitch constantly about their DPS and care about damage more than healing, make healing more fun. We can all agree healing is boring, right? So the solution is to make it not boring, not make healers even less focused on doing their job.

In honesty, I absolutely relish progression time because that's when my ability to 'heal all the things' gets properly tested. I miss the early days of T1, T5 and T13. Watching my tank get absolutely destroyed by the Flarebreath/Flatten combo on the first pull had me licking my chops at the thought of getting them through it. None of this 'Bene2+ED and then nothing to do for another 20 seconds because eos/regen has everything covered' that we've had this tier. I feel that the content has as big a part to play in this being such an issue now as the healing abilities themselves, however even fixing this is a bit of an issue now with things in the state they are as I'll lead onto next.

On a small tangent, I don't like hearing "I'm a career X" in MMOs because it sounds silly, but that's a topic for another day. You're not wrong, but you're also missing my point. My point has never been "Take away all healer DPS", and I made that point vehemently in my last post. I just think healers shouldn't focus on DPS more than healing.

Awh, I've been healing in mmos for going on 18 years now, and yes, I ran a netcafe with gaming facilities before UK broadband was a thing, so for a period this kind of was actually putting bread on the table for me so to speak, surely that counts for something right? =(

Seriously though, as per the previous paragraph, lets say SE add some fantastic support abilities post 60 along with new content that completely fixes these woes, this still leaves us with the problem of prior level synced content, leaving that unaltered whilst dialling back healer DPS would make old roulettes absolutely horrible. It's not the biggest issue here by any stretch, but it's something that needs to be considered and kept in mind with these ideas and proposals.

Defo agreed with your closing point and sorry if I came across as harsh with the DPS numbers and such, I just can't bring myself to stand there and be all 'I had my finger up my butt for 350 GCDs go me!', the sad state of affairs means that there literally is no other comparison available right now =( Nothing personal meant tho, I just love a good debate and I'm glad I'm getting one here <3

All in all though whilst this topic has been a bit of a wild ride in places, we've seen some excellent ideas floated about because of it. The %dps up aura + personal %healing down for CS is an absolute masterstroke. *coughcough* please spot this Yoshida!

This is like the strength tank argument all over again. I hope SE steps up to plate and makes a decision like they did in that situation.

The irony here is that the whole Str tank thing came to the forefront because of the Gordias DPS checks as well if I'm not mistaken. That tier has a lot to answer for =(

[Mycow8me]

Some people think keeping cleric stance is some kind of skill level modifier to healer when in reality it is just as you say, they are either going to use it or not use it. Without it, it will probably not change other than an annoying skill bloat item is now gone.

Now before someone (and I know who) comes along and says "Well we need to get rid of tank stance then". 4 of warriors skills are directly linked to their stance dancing. If that's not enough for you, the idea of an off tank being able to output the same DPS and enmity generation as a main tank at any given time (assuming neither of them is able to change their enmity generation via a stance) is not a good idea. Yes there are some combos that generate less enmity but only using certain combos isnt going to work either. Any time an off tank would use a HP restore ability or even a mitigation skill they are generating maximum enmity with it without being able to stance dance.

PS: I'd like to make sure warriors bursting berserk 3x fell cleave @13k crits not gain an enormous amount of hate as an off tank btw. It would be stupid to have to watch our dps to make sure we are not generating too much enmity just because we cant stance dance. I don't know if paladin or dork knight is able to burst damage in a similar fashion.

[Youkulm]

Now before someone (and I know who) comes along and says "Well we need to get rid of tank stance then"..

I don't even know how people are dense enough to equate tank stance to healer DPS stance. I didn't realize healers were trying to hold enmity on occasion in group settings hahaha. But yeah I’ve seen this argument. It's utterly ridiculous.

Just try-hards grasping at straws so they can keep their invisible "skill barrier".

You're also 100% right about the skill bloat. It should be removed for that reason alone. I would gladly take a new DPS skill or healing ability over Cleric any day of the week.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

While I ultimately agree with you, the effect removing Cleric has is community based. Sure, stubborn healers will stick to their claim healers should only ever heal, however the community's response will become much more opposed than it already is. Many groups will flat out refuse to raid with healers not DPSing because... well, they wouldn't have any excuses not to. Personally, I think that's a good thing, especially if higher heal checks are added. Some argue it's taking away skill, but really, good healers know how to seamlessly dance already. All this accomplishes is making the barrier to entry less daunting without affecting veteran players. Just can't say I'm certain the devs want the healer DPS meta to win.

[Saito_S]

@Atlaworks: not gonna try and string together ALL the relevant quotes for what I'm saying here, because they are spread over many of your posts and that'd be a quoting nightmare (and would make this post way too big, and it's already pretty big). That said...

Your stance (pun intended) on this whole thing makes zero sense.

Firstly, your ire is misdirected. You've been hammering away at the players for being "concerned about their DPS", when it's the game, as designed by the devs, which leads to this huge downtime, which leads to a lot of concern over DPS. You yourself have acknowledged this! You've said that what we should "strive for" is a change to the game, so that healing itself is more challenging, more engaging. Well, the players have zero control over that. Players who run as healers are simply playing the hand they've been dealt (pun NOT intended). Stop telling people to "do their job" and calling them layabouts simply for playing the game we have.

Secondly, you're conflating "concern over DPS" with "I care more about DPS than healing to the point of neglecting the latter." People who play healers have been expressing (in some cases; there isn't universal agreement on these points among healers, obviously) that they're worried the removal of Cleric's would flatten out the healer DPS game, or that SE might feel the need to make the DPS potential of healers weaker to compensate for it being easier to do with no stance-dance. You've apparently taken this to mean that those people care MORE about DPS'ing than they do about keeping their party healthy. I mean for Shiva's sake, when Taika made the statement "I'm not interested in being only a healer. I'm not interested in being only a DPS either. I want to be both and in this game I can (just like I could in FFXI as a healer as well, only to a lesser extent)." - which is a pretty unambiguous statement, it's spelled out in plain English right there, she says she likes both - you replied with "So you DO care more about DPS than healing!" Wh...huh? No, she doesn't, she just said she cares about both. Being concerned about the state of the healer role's DPS abilities doesn't mean they don't care about the healing part. Enjoying things as they are, and NOT being one of the healers who is frustrated with the DPS meta, also doesn't mean they don't care about healing.

You're looking at the position that people opposed to you have actually taken, twisting that into a related but distinctly different (and more extreme) position, and then arguing - vehemently and in an aggressive manner - against THAT position.

Thirdly, who are you to tell people how to enjoy their class? Because that's what you're doing. Often on this forum, we joke about the people who can't take even mild criticism, who play really badly (ice mages and 2000% overhealers and melee DPS spamming one move, etc) and then when someone calls them out on it, they're all "don't tell ME how to pLAY!" Of course, in such scenarios, it's a nonsensical reply. "Don't tell me how to play!" has almost become an FFXIV community meme to mock those who refuse to put in EVEN the bare minimum of effort, and respond to all attempts to help them improve with vitriol.

Well guess what: in this thread, you actually ARE telling people "how to play". You're telling them that if they are concerned about their DPS, then they're bad healers and should stop playing that role. "Your job is to HEAL, not DPS!" Says who? You? Because the GAME certainly doesn't say that. If someone says, flat-out, they enjoy the DPS skills in their healer toolkit more than the healing aspect, and then you go play with them, and they perform admirably - DPS'ing effectively during all available windows but always keeping the party alive and in good shape, cleansing debuffs/status ailments when needed, etc etc. - no one dies and the run is smooth. Then what's the problem? You said in one of your posts that "I don't give a damn what you like, and frankly hope you have fun and continue playing." That is a blatant falsehood - the message in your posts has been, explicitly and clearly, that people shouldn't WANT to DPS more than heal if they play a healer. That simply being concerned about what happens to their DPS capabilities means their priorities are screwed up, objectively wrong, and they need to play a different class. Even qualifying your statement in that post with "Just don't do it near me, thanks" contradicts the idea that you "don't give a damn". If you're in a duty and your partymates perform well, and aren't asshats, then you don't care what they THINK about how their role should work, or which parts of it they find more fun. If - regardless of how well they do in the dungeon with you - you need to berate them, tell them to Get Out, and tell them you don't want them near you, then yeah, you do give a rather huge damn about what they think and what they find fun.

You are LITERALLY saying "If you don't prioritize these aspects of your class the way I think you should, if you don't enjoy them in this specific order, then you are a Bad Healer. Get out."

And that's pretty fucked up.

And FOURTHLY, as has been repeated ad nauseam, this is the game we have. It's not going to change. That's reality - no matter how many times we appeal to the devs, I think everyone (I would hope?) realizes at this point that it is unlikely in the extreme that we are going to see a major shift toward harder-hitting bosses that make the healing part of healer play much more demanding. A shift away from healers even having TIME to DPS because they need to be healing so much. Etc.

Note: I am not weighing in on whether such a change would be good or bad. I am simply referring to the fact that it's incredibly unlikely. And if it doesn't come, if the game we have simply continues forward, then healers will keep DPS'ing, and many of them will continue to be concerned about how their DPS works, how strong it is, etc. Because it will remain a big part of their toolkit, like it or not.

Since this entire post is just discreding me and telling me "lol u mad bro" I'm just going to generally disregard your entire post and tell you to get out.

The whole thing reeks of smarm and "I'm not mad :^)".

Weak. Taika's post that you are referring to here was not a quick drive-by or a poorly typed, rush-rage whine-fest. It was CLEARLY a normal post, continuing the back-and-forth that you two have been engaged in, and it actually made a lot of good points. And she was right: you were the first one who pulled out the silly "you must be mad!" tactic. If you're out of counter-arguments or don't feel like making the attempt to rebut her points anymore, just say so.

The TL;DR of all this is:

Maybe YOU should Get Out.

[Youkulm]

Snip

Sadly I think the standard for raid level healers to DPS is already required. It's already common occurances for healers to be kicked from groups for not pulling their weight ( usually off healers ) for not spending enough time in cleric. I've even seen healers kicked for this reason in dungeons as well.

You're correct, I agree with you.. but I don't know that this will ever be fixed with the meta as it stands. The meta also isn't the problem so much as the game. The game does not require much healing...

And here is a question I pose for the devs... I feel like healing should honestly be more intensive. Healers should be healing. DPSing is great when you have time but why isn't a majority of our time actually spent healing? Why do I have so much down time to DPS? It's mind boggling to me.

[TaleraRistain]

Healer DPS is actually factored into tuning endgame content in the sense that most difficult content is not possible to clear without it when it's released (you can look at the world first parses to check it yourself in case you weren't aware of it). To say healer DPS isn't factored in is to say the players aren't actually meant to beat the content, which doesn't make any sense.

SE has stated that they do not factor in healer DPS when tuning the content for the ilevel they use in development. This is not the same ilevel as the minimum ilevel. They don't do this because this allows the world-firsters to tackle the content at below the ilevel they use in development and manage to squeak out a clear by squeezing out every extra bit they can, like healer dps. If they actually included healer dps in tuning, then the content would not be able to be cleared until groups had reached the ilevel that the developers used to tune the content.

[SaitoHikari]

-snip-

Just get rid of Cleric it’s so unnecessary. It’s bad design and it should have never been in the game to begin with. The dev team needs to do the right thing just like they did with tanks and STR. Fix it already.

Pretty much. I'll just re-quote myself from like 20 pages ago.

I sort of feel like Cleric Stance in its current form is likely to be removed or overhauled in some way.

Healers are the only role in the game where there's such a huge disparity on exactly what they should be doing at any given time, and it's all because of one skill making things more complicated than necessary. It's easy to see why Yoshi hates it - it has nothing to do with whether or not he believes healers should DPS, it's because he probably looks at healers and realizes that just half of a healer's toolkit is available at any given time, and you press one button to flip between each half. It's not very creative, and it's limiting for the sake of 'balance'. A sense of balance that is probably overblown and causing way more harm than good at this point. Considering the devs have repeatedly stated that one of their primary goals with SB is to shrink the skill gap between casual and top players, Cleric Stance at this point is the literal symbol of a skill barrier that only exists to create such a gap rather than adding any unique gameplay value to the healer role.

One action has split the community into three camps:
- One camp that believes you should never press the button period, and thus lock themselves out of using half of the skills made available to them.
- One camp that wants to flip but is otherwise scared because pressing it at the wrong time will prevent them from fulfilling their primary role during a crucial mechanic, possibly causing a party wipe. There's also accidental activation and double pressing lag to take into account too.
- One camp that believes that button should be pressed as often as possible, and that true skill is based on how long that red icon is up while ensuring the party doesn't die.

There's no justification for this anywhere in the lore either. There is nothing in the lore that explains why the player character can only heal effectively or inflict damage at any given time instead of being able to do both at once. Class quests don't even acknowledge its existence. Enemy healers certainly don't have Cleric Stance. There's that one boss in Lost City of Amdapor HM that has something LIKE Cleric Stance, but the fundamental difference is that it changes how her skills -behave-, not just on a numerical level. (And this is what I mean by Cleric Stance possibly being overhauled instead of removed as a possibility - if the developers delete Cleric Stance, the developers might have White Mages keep an overhauled version of it for class identity reasons, and it'd behave like what the boss in Amdapor HM does, as in toggling it on or off causes certain abilities to inflict damage instead of healing. Basically the concept of Assize, but taken even further.)

Of course, if Cleric Stance is removed and healer damage is made to scale off of Mind, some will ask, what's to stop healers from being another DPS? The answer is that this isn't even an issue in the first place, no healer should be able to emulate the amount of damage a -good- DPS can do anyway, not even in today's environment among raid healers, because healers generally lack the ability to weave in offensive oGCDs between each action like the physical classes and lack the raw power that the casters have.

We should also stop pretending that raids aren't designed with healer damage in mind, some DPS checks these days don't appear to be passable (at least within the first week or two of release) without some form of healer damage, and the removal of Cleric Stance in this way would also lead to the developers essentially standardizing healer damage for raids, instead of being in some weird purgatory where they have to decide whether they want to promote one side or the other. This would let them kill two birds with one stone - let them fully design raids while taking healer damage into account so that the top raid groups don't immediately steamroll fights where healer damage is assumed to be at 0, and make it easier for healers in general to contribute to damage without having to fumble with a button, thus shrinking part of the skill gap.

I do want to note that from what I've seen in regards to the whole 'don't remove Cleric Stance because it separates the best players from the baddies' argument, the vast majority of raid healers I've seen are in favor of removing Cleric Stance anyway, at least in Sargatanas. There are people willing to take a hit to their, quite frankly, useless pride if it meant the betterment of the community as a whole.